Transcript (by Youtube)


3s [Music]
5s greetings Marvel Strikeforce community
8s and welcome to your community update
10s show please welcome back to the show the
13s general manager for Marvel strike force
16s Mr Ryan Jacobson thank you for taking
17s the time to come in today sir yeah thank
19s you cro for having me it's been a while
21s glad to be back it's it's we are due so
23s I know a lot has been going on since
26s July which was your first appearance on
28s the show um could you give us a couple
30s of highlights on some of the things
32s you've been working on behind the scenes
33s in the past six to seven months wow
36s there's a lot there um I think we've
39s been trying to really you know fix a lot
41s of the core issues on kind of some of
43s the way that we are operating the game
45s uh trying to put on a better experience
48s for our players listening to our players
50s right the player Council engaging with
52s them listening feedback from the envoys
54s uh the community at large um as well as
57s trying to make sure that we are trying
59s to build the the best Marvel experience
62s possible and I think that we're
63s continuing to put a lot of work into
65s that as well as trying to develop a lot
67s of new stuff that we're really excited
69s about that's going to be coming out in
71s 2024 last year especially was just
74s thinking about a lot of the mistakes
76s that we had kind of made in the past and
78s learning from those mistakes um and kind
81s of trying to really make sure that our
82s players voices were really being heard
85s and that they also knew we were
86s listening and actually making a lot of
88s the changes um from a lot the feedback
90s we were receiving you mentioned changes
93s do you have one maybe on the top of your
96s head that you can think of of a change
98s that you think is going really well and
100s you want to continue going down that
102s path yeah I think there's so many to be
103s honest with you I I think you know we
105s got a little bit of flack for kind of
107s recently running a gold spend event um
109s but you know if you look back we stopped
112s running those primarily for the entire
114s year right where we knew our players
116s really did not enjoy those types of
118s hoarding events I still think there's a
120s lot to do on the kind of live op side
123s around kind of the overall events and
125s experiences we want to be putting on for
126s those players um as well as kind of
129s going back to kind of cosmic Crucible
131s right trying to really make sure that
133s that was a player Theory crafting mode
135s and making sure that it wasn't a locking
137s key um so I think there's a lot of
139s little examples like that where if you
142s kind of take a look back and kind of
144s know what we were doing we've made a lot
147s in my opinion significant changes to the
150s way that we operate the game and again
152s there's still a lot of work ahead of us
154s uh but I do feel like now we are
156s definitely on the correct path to making
159s sure that the community really is
161s enjoying the experience that we're
163s trying to deliver to them yeah sometimes
165s it's
166s the smaller things I guess you could say
169s that can make a huge difference like our
170s recent quality of life improvement with
173s the the iso so like the the community
175s just blew up about that and said that
177s was one of the best ever and that was
179s maybe what I don't know we work yeah
181s yeah exactly and I think you know we we
183s need to always try and find time to
185s prioritize a lot of that work I mean you
187s know there's only so many resources that
189s can go around when you're doing game
191s development but it is important and
193s you're totally right right all those
195s little things um add up number one but
198s certain things that are small um can
201s have a great impact so we tend to think
202s of players of as kind of like in
204s different segments sometimes like we
206s think about you know our veteran players
207s we think about new players uh there's
210s kind of that section in between it's a
212s bit amorphous which is returning players
215s you know players that maybe got too busy
218s in their life now they got some more
219s time they can come back check us out and
221s see how things are going um what's kind
223s of your thought process into creating a
226s great onboarding experience for players
230s that maybe took a few months off or even
231s a couple years off yeah laps players is
233s always something um that's difficult to
236s kind of figure out what is the approach
239s how do you want them to come back when
241s do you want them to come back what we're
242s trying to do is make sure that as a new
245s player coming in they have the ability
247s to catch up much quicker than they have
249s been in the past right so if you look at
251s kind of character fountaining I think
253s we've actually done a great job of what
255s we said we would set out to do which is
257s allowing for availability of newer
259s characters much earlier on than we ever
262s have done historically I think there's
264s also a lot of exciting things that we're
266s going to be doing for six year
268s anniversary um as well as as we have
270s some big beatss coming out this year
273s that I think hopefully uh for some of
275s those players who have may have felt the
277s the game was stale or stagnant uh will
280s come back and go wow this is really
281s exciting I I'm glad I came back to
283s Marble Strike Force so you announced in
286s the show back in July the formation of
289s the player voice Council um is there a
292s piece of feedback that you could
293s highlight that they surfaced to you that
297s the team was able to take some
299s significant action on you know there's
300s times where they give us feedback on
304s specific ways that we're operating say
307s an event yeah where they will tell us
309s hey we didn't appreciate this or didn't
311s like this for these very specific
313s reasons um then we listen to that kind
315s of feedback and we make sure that moving
317s forward we're iterating on it um or
320s there's examples with features uh they
322s get kind of early insight to some of the
324s features that we release they give us
327s some feedback and we actually really
328s listen and there's a couple of examples
330s where we pivoted the way that we were
333s personally going to develop that feature
335s into listening to that feedback and
337s making some of those changes so now that
338s we're kind of up to speed now
342s 2024 um I wrote the preview blog I know
345s we got some big stuff coming up in
347s 2024 um could you since November when we
351s kind of made some of the announcements
352s are are there any more details you can
354s give us on some of the things we should
355s be looking forward to battle world first
358s and foremost we we are really excited
361s about there's a lot of our resources
364s right now actively working on it um I'm
366s continually seeing what we're developing
369s and it makes me really excited as well
371s as moments um I think that's one of the
373s things that I really believe is going to
375s help a lot more of that theory crafting
377s and and being able to kind of do and
378s utilize characters that you would want
380s to use um that maybe aren't nearly as
382s met irrelevant and bringing some of that
385s back um you know there's a symbiote
387s behind you I'll just kind of you know
388s leave it at that oo okay I like that I
392s have to Circle back onto something you
394s mentioned moments we haven't actually
398s talked about moments yet is that
400s something that you care to go into a
402s little bit moments at a high level is a
405s way to be able to equip um some stats to
410s characters that will help to make them
413s be more relevant where we are today in
416s the current meta is it is it at least
418s safe to say that moments is fairly
421s different than any of the existing types
424s of things that are like that in the game
427s yeah 100% this is something brand new
430s that there's nothing like this inside of
432s the game right now this is not an
434s extension of anything that we've ever
435s created uh this is something brand new
438s that we feel can really change up the
442s meta of the game how about new
444s characters uh We've released a lot of
446s big names into the game uh thank you for
448s Nightcrawler by the way
450s um but we still have our players still
453s have some pretty big names you know that
455s that you would recognize at the top of
456s the list are we going to get around to
458s more of those this year yeah it's it's
459s funny you know I I always watch all all
461s the videos I read all the reddits I see
463s everything um a lot of people picked up
466s on a little Easter egg we p in one of
468s our our recent Splash screens but they
471s actually picked up on the wrong part of
473s the Easter egg which was interesting to
474s me um so there are some characters that
477s are going to be coming out this year
480s that I personally am very excited for um
484s you know again I I love Marvel I love
486s this IP feel very fortunate to work on
489s it I guess as the GM you have a little
491s bit of influence I think I think
492s darkhawk was one of yours your that you
494s were really kind of pushing the combat
496s team for right yeah there's I mean
498s there's always a lot right um as the GM
501s yes I guess it gives me a little bit
502s more um Sway and kind of some of the
504s characters that we push out yeah
506s darkhawk as you know a kid growing up I
508s always thought he was a really cool fun
510s looking character and as we were
511s creating Pegasus I was like hey this is
513s a perfect time for us to kind of slip
514s him in there um I think there's a lot
517s more influence I probably have over the
520s 2024 lineup so yeah if everyone's
523s disappointed they can come yelling at me
524s but I think we have a some exciting
526s characters that will be coming out this
528s year awesome well Ryan thank you so much
530s for taking the time to come here and
531s chat with us um this has been and
533s lightning and I know our players really
535s appreciate it thank you thanks CBO have
537s a good one please welcome back to the
539s show and amazing person game designer Mr
542s Byron melac who's rocking an amazing
544s shirt today oh thank
546s you uh thank you very much so before we
549s jump into today's main topic uh I always
552s like asking you meta questions about the
554s grander Marvel Universe have you seen
557s the new Echo Show yet I have I've I've
559s actually really been enjoying it I'm
561s actually a fan of stories about more of
564s the uh street level uh hero Antics in
567s the Marvel Universe um one of the things
570s I actually really enjoy about the show
572s is it this is going to sound cheesy but
575s one of the themes of love in the show
578s but how that how that's shown by an
581s entire family accommodating a um uh a
585s family member who's who's deaf by
587s everyone in the family learning ASL
589s which I think is really cool yeah I also
591s really enjoy uh when you mentioned kind
594s of like the street level heroes you tend
596s to get more of those Close Quarter
598s combats right like in the first episode
600s when e Ekko and Daredevil are like
602s fighting in a cage and they have limited
604s mobility and so they have to really use
606s the environment to their advantage I
608s love that stuff yeah it's also like you
610s get a better sense of like the
613s consequences on more normal people uh
616s like what uh what Ekko does in the
619s second episode and the ramifications
621s that they have on her loved ones um but
623s I'm also like the other reason why I was
625s really excited for the show is I really
627s liked Hawkeye um and the fact that this
630s is basically a direct continuation of
633s those story threads is really cool well
635s speaking of echo from the past you see
638s what I did there okay uh we have a new
642s team coming out uh that is called out of
645s time now can I take that trait as
649s literally as it sounds uh yeah
652s absolutely uh we have the out of time
655s consists of five characters so three new
657s characters and two reworks or two re
659s works are Captain America and Captain
661s Carter who are from the 1940s but then
664s we also have black knight specifically
667s the version from the aruan Legends we
669s have star brand but star brand from a
673s Million BC so actually the first T star
676s brand and then finally we have Cosmic
678s Ghost Rider who's from the far-flung
680s future I I love Cosmic Ghost Riders look
683s by the way like I love the the helmet
686s like it's it it makes my brain kind of
689s work can be like how can you have a
690s flaming skull inside of an enclosed
693s helmet but it looks neat yeah no the art
696s team really went to t uh Town H and
698s sometimes you just see you see
700s characters in Marvel comic books you
702s like I don't know what that is but I
703s want that but it looks cool yeah so I
706s don't want to just assume that all
707s heroes know each other but being both 1
711s Million BC are star brand and black
715s panther aware of each other in the game
718s so our star brand um and black panther
721s Million BC do know each other uh they
724s actually were in the same com uh and on
726s the same Avengers team which was called
728s Avengers 1 Million BC oh wow so the
731s whole title of Captain America the First
733s Avenger was was big fat
736s lie because it technically it was a
740s million plus years ago there a Million
742s BC there was an entire Avengers team an
745s entire story of them saving saving the
748s world so yeah no that you're right about
750s that all right so cap is back how many
754s reworks is this for
755s cap uh since the global release of the
758s game it's been he's had four reworks
761s yeah okay uh yeah the only the only time
764s he he shows up on a lot of teams in
765s Marvel Strikeforce in fact the only
767s place he shows up on more teams is in
769s the comic runs well he's the gift that
771s keeps on giving so you know feel good
774s about building up your Captain America
777s yeah he's de if you if you love Captain
780s America and you've put invested a lot in
782s him you will always get value of him so
784s this is quite the eclectic group uh of
789s characters that we've assembled here uh
791s any insights as to the character
793s selection I mean yeah out of time is
795s certainly a hodge podge of different
798s Heroes um but we like doing this
800s occasionally uh to really drive home the
803s point that like this is a team that's
805s going to have some different mechanics
806s into the game or a different way to play
809s uh so uh from the design side that's
811s what made them really exciting to work
813s on well I really appreciate you peeling
815s back the curtain uh for our players uh
818s let's really get into it and dive into
819s the kits again we're not going to go
821s over all the details here we'd be here
824s all day but they are up over on Marvel
826s strike force.com so you can pull that up
828s be reading along as we are talking about
830s them uh could you give us a highle
833s description of the team and uh where
835s they are going to be the most useful I'd
837s be happy to out of time it's going to be
839s a powerful New Alliance War team they're
841s going to be coming in as general use war
844s team so they won't have any specific
845s call outs to either offense or defense
848s so that'll give players a flexibility to
850s either use them to clear out rooms or
852s defend rooms Black Knight is a protector
855s that turns his defensive stats into
857s damage all of black Knight's active
858s abilities deal bonus damage based on his
861s armor percent bonus while his ultimate
863s and passive attacks deal damage based on
865s his max Health Black Knight retaliates
868s against any enemy that attacks him or
870s his allies while he is charged star
873s brand is a brawler who deals heavy
875s damage and has special targeting on all
877s of his active abilities his basic will
879s do extra damage on an enemy with the
882s highest damage his special will do an
884s extra attack on the enemy with the
886s highest speed and his ultimate will do
889s an extra attack on the most injured
890s enemy all of these ignore taunt and
893s stealth Cosmic Ghost Rider is a
895s controller who has a rather unique
897s passive ability on spawn he doubles the
899s amount of speed bar gained by enemies at
901s the start of battle at first this sounds
903s like a bad thing until you read another
905s part of the ability which says that all
907s enemies who take a turn before Cosmic
909s ghost reuer or his allies have their
911s focus lowered by 5,000% and damage
913s lowered by 50% he will also be our first
916s character that clears Battlefield
918s effects Captain America is getting a
920s boost to his base stats but it's mostly
922s his health that's increasing and is
923s getting a bit faster some of his
926s abilities now synergize with out of time
928s such as his bonus Focus for his shield
930s throw ultimate Captain Carter is getting
932s similar treatment with a boost to base
934s stats and added callouts to the out
936s oftime trait but she is getting some new
938s functionality added to her special and
940s ultimate ability so now they can no
942s longer be counterattacked in war so
944s going back to Cosmic Ghost Rider for
946s just a second where did this idea of
949s like giving debuffs to characters that
952s do their attacks first like where did
954s that idea come from it was actually a
956s bit of an accident many characters can
958s gain speed bar at the start of the game
960s and it's very powerful uh I had been
962s trying to figure out how to counter it
964s so I was experimenting with different
966s ways to diffuse it in one play test I
968s actually accidentally set a value to
970s positive instead of negative and
972s suddenly the enemy team was taking even
973s more turns before any Out of Time
976s character but combined with the huge
977s reduction in damage and focus for the
979s enemy team and black Knight's retaliate
981s attack on his passive it turned into a
983s devastating combo against the enemy
985s teams turns out the answer wasn't to try
988s to drain the enemy with their speed bar
990s but to flood them with
992s it that's awesome that's a great story I
995s I like uh some of the greatest
998s inventions ever were kind of uh pseudo
1000s accidents right I think Corn Flakes was
1002s one right like it was an accident that
1004s he like they left the dough out on the
1006s table and then in the morning they came
1007s back they was like oh I invented Corn
1010s Flakes well it was a similar story to
1013s penicillin oh yeah yeah yeah you know he
1015s he left the Petri petri dish out with
1017s the uh with the fungus and realized that
1019s the uh the bacteria had um was gone the
1022s following morning and that's how we got
1024s penicillin so we've got cornflakes
1028s penicillin Cosmic Ghost Rider there you
1030s go all all you can put them all together
1033s there's another interesting part to his
1034s kit too where if he's
1038s exhausted one of the parts of his
1039s abilities is basically turned off um and
1043s exhausted is something that's unique to
1045s war right correct Soo what your point
1049s out is in his passive whenever an enemy
1052s character uses an ultimate ability
1053s Cosmic Ghost Rider will give himself and
1055s all of his out of time allies a big
1057s chunk of barrier it's a it's a great and
1060s powerful you know defensive ability
1062s however to kind of alleviate the stress
1066s of facing out of time on defense we
1068s added a check for it so essentially if
1071s you're facing out of time on defense for
1074s the first time you're going to have to
1075s deal with this mechanic but if you're
1076s going in for our subsequent try
1079s exhausted gets applied to the defending
1081s team and that exhausted mechanic is
1083s going to turn off the barrier gain part
1086s of cosmic Ghost Riders passive so one of
1088s the things that we were discussing
1089s before the show is that the design team
1093s is looking at
1094s expanding exhausted and how it can
1097s potentially be inflicted is that correct
1100s yeah actually um you'll I'm not going to
1103s say it outright but if you look through
1106s Cosmic ghost riters kit he has a call
1108s out to a specific character who's
1110s technically not out yet so I think play
1113s Maybe players can put one inone together
1115s with that one so safe to say that line
1118s about exhausted probably has a little
1120s bit more to it than what we can get into
1123s today right correct cool so diamonds are
1126s still a relatively new feature in the
1128s game uh we've got five characters that
1131s we're going to try and bring up to three
1132s diamonds do you have any recommendations
1134s on which characters that um you would
1138s advise players try to prioritize out of
1140s those five oh absolutely uh Black Knight
1142s would definitely be at the top of my
1144s list because his ultimate in his passive
1147s attacks deal damage based on his uh
1150s maximum health um getting diamonds onto
1153s Black Knight is really going to push the
1155s amount of damage he can do and of course
1157s we also have to talk about
1158s recommendations for ISO 8 what are you
1161s favoring in your play testing sure Black
1163s Knight uses his defensive stats to deal
1165s damage so fortifier is a good pick for
1167s him if you plan on running him in teams
1169s without dedicated support healer is
1171s strangely a good pick for him because of
1173s his large Health pool starbrand already
1176s delivers multiple attacks with each of
1177s his active abilities so Striker is a
1179s great ad Cosmic Ghost Rider has very
1182s high focus so using skirmisher to
1184s reliably apply those vulnerables is a
1186s great choice Captain America is still a
1188s durable tank so fortifier is still good
1191s on him Captain Carter has formidable
1193s healing abilities so healer will just
1195s make her healing that much better are
1197s there any other particular synergies
1200s that you would like to highlight with
1201s the out of time team yes there are the
1203s big Wombo Combo between Cosmic Ghost
1205s Rider and black knight will require
1207s their full fiveman out of time team to
1209s be present in Alliance War to unlock
1211s their full potential that being said
1213s black Knight's passive attack Works in
1215s any mode and activates when any allies
1218s attack not just out of time allies
1220s Cosmic Ghost Rider's ability to clear
1222s noa's Battlefield effect with his
1223s special and red Hulk's Battlefield
1226s effect with his ultimate also work in
1227s any game mode starbrand provides passive
1230s stats for damage drain and crit chance
1232s he provides those passive stats not just
1234s to Out of Time allies but also to Black
1236s Panther 1 Million BC all right Byron
1238s well I think it's time for us to find
1240s out when are we going to get the out of
1243s time team well you should look forward
1245s to acquiring uh the new Out of Time
1247s characters and our next patch of 7.7 uh
1251s which should be releasing very soon
1254s Byron thank you so much for coming by
1256s and giving us the information of the
1258s players really appreciate it uh you're
1260s the best well I think you're the best
1262s cro thanks for having me on before we
1265s end the show today I have a bit of
1267s personal news that I'd like to share
1269s with you I will be heading out on a new
1271s adventure which means that this will be
1274s my final episode of strike time this was
1277s an incredibly difficult decision for me
1279s because I love so many things about
1280s Marvel strike force my co-workers our
1283s partners at Marvel of course the
1285s community is just amazing I've working
1288s on this game for nearly 5 years at this
1291s point heck we even did a number of
1293s episodes of the show from my house on my
1297s couch and the community was so
1300s supportive through all of it I really
1302s just cannot thank you enough you have
1303s enabled for me to do my dream job like
1306s how many people get to do this this game
1309s still has such a long life ahead of it
1312s and so many amazing things planned so do
1314s me one last favor would you help blow up
1316s this video like it share it comment
1319s let's make this the most watch Strike
1321s Time episode ever from the bottom of my
1323s heart thank you so much and I'll see you
1326s out there as always thank you for
1328s watching this episode of strike
1336s time yeah yeah I'll even miss you guys
1339s too now I know you're not real and that
1343s talking to you makes me borderline
1344s schizophrenic but um Spider-Man talks to
1347s himself all the time
1349s so can't be that bad